A petition to include some kind of Robin Williams memorial in a future Zelda title has reached over 100,000 signatures, and Nintendo has offered a response.

Much like the petition that encouraged Blizzard to include a Robin Williams NPC in World of Warcraft, this petition asks Nintendo to consider creating a Robin Williams NPC in a future Zelda title. It has reached more than 100,000 signatures and reads, "Robin was an avid player of video games, with a love for all things Nintendo, and a particular love of all things Legend of Zelda. It is well-known that he named his daughter after the series' titular princess."

A representative from Nintendo responded to inquiry from Polygon about the petition and offered the following statement:

"We appreciate the outpouring of support from the gaming community, and
hear the request of fans to honor him in a future game. We will not be
discussing what might be possible for future games during this difficult
time, but we will hold our memories of Robin close."

Nintendo worked with Robin Williams and his daughter Zelda to help promote the 3DS release of Ocarina of Time with a series of ads, one of which you can see below.

Our TakeI appreciate Nintendo offering a statement regarding the petition. I also understand that it is not prepared to make any promises it won't be able to keep. I would like to see a Robin Williams memorial in a future Zelda title, even if its not an NPC, and I hope it's something Nintendo and Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma are seriously considering.

Starting this morning, we began receiving word from readers that their Thief saves have disappeared or otherwise been corrupted. Given the date, we were skeptical, but after investigating the multitude of complaints on the forums and hearing from Square Enix, we are confident there is a problem.

Players are reporting that manual saves are disappearing, and that older saves have been wiped of some data (mostly side quests). The issues can be fixed on Windows 7 machines by setting the date ahead to April 2, though that reportedly does not work for Windows 8 computers. Users are also reporting problem with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game.

"We're aware of an issue that seems to be affecting some Thief players, preventing them from completing some levels,” a Square Enix representative told us via email. “We're taking this very seriously – as a first step we're reading as many reports of the issue as possible, working to replicate it internally, so that we can understand what's causing it. We're sorry for any disruption to your game today, and we'll update you as soon as we have more information."

We’ll update as we know more. For now, we recommend not booting up the game until April 2. Thanks to the many readers who emailed us about this problem.

Our TakeThis is probably the oddest story of the day, and we're interested in learning more about how it happened. If you’ve lost your save or have otherwise experienced corrupted data in Thief today, please email us and let us know what you’re experiencing.

3D Realms isn’t backing down from its most recent legal dispute with Gearbox, after the studio asserted it has the rights to develop its Duke Nukem game, and more than that, it has the sole rights to the Duke Nukem trademark.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer is getting more involved with what franchises feature in Games with Gold, but the Xbox executive downplayed comparisons with Sony’s PlayStation Plus service. Polygon reports that at his SXSW panel, Spencer reiterated there’s…Joystiq RSS Feed

After three years of absence, the NBA Live series made a return this
year, and it didn't turn out that well. Executive producer for the game,
Sean O’Brien, recently posted a letter online responding to the
criticism, and promising better games in the future.

In the letter O'Brien goes on to say, "We hear loud and clear that some of you are disappointed in various aspects of NBA Live 14, and I’m sorry if the game doesn’t live up to your expectations. Looking at your feedback, we have laid out a plan to make NBA LIVE 14 a better game as quickly as we can." The developers have plans to expand the game's tutorials so it will be easier to learn, as well as host Twitch streams for more education on best play practices. O'Brien also says that you can expect to see updates that will help with the games visuals and animations soon.

O'Brien finishes up the letter saying, "For those of you who have supported us throughout this development cycle and continue to have our backs now, thank you. We’ve got a lot of work to do; I’ve got a lot of work to do."

Our TakeIt's always good to hear game developers taking criticism to heart – even if it's not easy. NBA Live has a lot of catching up to do to the 2K series, but it sounds like EA and O'Brien are up for the challenge.

Microsoft pulled its support page that instructed users how to update their Xbox One systems offline using a USB drive. We’ve included an image of the cached support page above, which is no longer available to view.

The Xbox Support page instructed Xbox One owners with a two gigabyte USB stick to download one of two compressed update files to their computers, then unzip them to the root of the USB drive. The process then had owners holding the bind and eject buttons while turning their consoles on, releasing the two buttons once they hear two start-up tones. According to the now-unavailable support page, that last step told the Xbox One to search for an update from a USB drive, a procedure that isn’t part of the system’s initial booting process.

We’ve contacted Microsoft for comment.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson tells Joystiq that “the site was not an alternative way to take the Day One update and customers still need to connect to Xbox Live for the update. Because of the complexity of this customer support process we’ve actually removed the page and we will work with customers directly to make sure they have a smooth experience.”

The leak of gameplay and story details concerning Grand Theft Auto 5 stemmed from a file in the European PlayStation Store’s digital pre-order download of the game, Sony and Rockstar announcements revealed yesterday.

PlayStation Social Media Manager Sid Shuman stated that the pre-order file has since been removed and apologized to “Rockstar and GTA fans across the world who were exposed to the spoiler content.”

Rockstar’s statement on a Rockstar Newswire post explained it was “deeply disappointed by leaks and spoilers being spread in advance of the game’s launch. GTA5 represents years of hard work by many people across the world, and we all couldn’t be more excited to finally share it with you properly this September 17.”

Rockstar also took the opportunity to remind Social Club community members that anyone discussing spoilers or misinformation would “have commenting privileges revoked until well after the game’s release.” It’s nice to see Rockstar committing to providing a spoiler-free place to anticipate GTA5, but we all know how the internet handles popular media. If you’re hoping to keep the game’s surprises intact, consider avoiding social media until the game’s September 17 release.

On January 1, 2013, Australian gamers celebrated the new year and a new era in gaming down under. On that day, the country's Federal Parliament added a new rating (R18+) that would pave the way for titles like Grand Theft Auto and other mature, adult-targeted games. Imagine our surprise when we found out that Saints Row IV was refused classification today.

We've played Saints Row IV. It's absurd. There is nudity. I punched someone "down under" (not to be confused with the nickname for Australia). The very first title approved under this rating was the blood-soaked Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. Since then, God of War: Ascension (of Bros before Hos fame), Metro: Last Light, Dead Island Riptide, and Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition have all squeaked by with the R18+ mark.

There seems to be little rhyme or reason to prohibiting Saints Row IV (maybe it's all the glorious f-bombs?). That said, it probably isn't the worst thing for Deep Silver. What happens when you dangle something out of reach? People want it that much more.

And the good news is that, they're going to get it. Deep Silver shared this statement with Game Informer.

Deep Silver can confirm that Saints Row IV was denied an age classification in Australia. Volition, the developer, are reworking some of the code to create a version of the game for this territory by removing the content which could cause offence without reducing the outlandish gameplay that Saints Row fans know and love. Saints Row IV has been awarded PEGI 18 and ESRB M ratings where fans can enjoy their time in Steelport as originally intended.

Will this tone down the absurdity? No. Will this remove the dubstep gun? Only if the Australian government hates hilarious things. Will this maybe snip out a bit of foul language and some superfluous nudity that doesn't really add much? Perhaps.

The important thing is that Australian gamers will get a chance to play Saints Row IV. Based on my hands on time and Dan Ryckert's previews from PAX East and E3 2013, that's the important part.

You'll be able to find out for yourself on August 20, when the President of the United Saints arrives in stores for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.